In my Merriam Webster's Collegiate dictionary, the fourth definition of "dubious" refers to something of questionable quality or value. When I've seen the word used in that context, it is often part of a tongue in cheek comment that means to tease more than insult the recipient. For example, one of my college classmates acted in a play, and a reviewer accused him of having a "dubious Southern accent." While my friend may not have been the greatest actor, his accent was the real McCoy, as the reviewer well knew.

Were I to interpret Thomas' banter, it would be that Excel experts are not known for being comedians. What we find amusing may bring a smile to our significant others, but generally isn't ROFL. So when an Excel expert begins one of the classic joke story lines, it's dubious humor to the world at large while remaining a challenge on the punch line to our crowd.

Congratulations for earning a place in the Excel Genius club. We don't make it easy to join, so I know that you put countless hours into the effort. I also know that a wide variety of people have benefitted from your help and expertise.

>>>>When I've seen the word used in that context, it is often part of a tongue in cheek comment that means to tease more than insult the recipient.

Hmmm, even I thought so. My English is pretty good( except for the ellipses... lol) Just wanted to be sure. Because dubious also means "Double Meanings" or "Doubtful" etc. From where I come from dubious was never taken as a positive word :) Thanks for explaining it. :)

>>>Hitting the Genius mark in any zone in just ~105 or so days is a tremendous achievement.

Thanks Patrick. Yes it is 105 days :)

Honestly, There are 2 main reasons reasons for this. And I am sharing this for the first time. ;-)

1) Richard(Cyberkiwi). If you see his profile. Right at the bottom, you will find some interesting facts. I would have easily achieved it in 92 days (18th of Feb) as my original plan was but I got demotivated (Don't ask me why) by the end of 1st week of Feb and I almost stopped answering threads in EE. I also thought of not returning to EE but here I am.

2) Your Excel Sheet. Your Excel Sheet predicted 10th March so I wanted to see if an earlier date (18th of Feb) was possible. :)

>>>>stay motivated for that next cert--it's a long, hard slog to Savant :)
Yes, it is and this time I am not going to be de-motivated!

Congratulations Sid! 105 days from 0 to a million is a great achievement. I just checked my own profile to find that I've been a member for 4562 days and I've only just passed the halfway mark. I wonder what predicted Genius date I would get? Some date in 2024 maybe?

Saurabh had done it in about 8 months, teylyn in less than 6, Mike about 9, and the old geniuses had to toil through 2 points questions to get their ranks, so I guess about 5 years for most of them. Sid probably has got the quickest ascent to genius status.

> nd the old geniuses had to toil through 2 points questions to get their ranks, so I guess about 5 years for most of them.

Not quite that bad as the 500 pointers had come in by then, albeit question volume was much lower than today

Brad was relatively quick when he cracked the first Genius cert in Excel (as a new TA) back in 2004 or so. Maybe a year?
I took something around 1.5 years for the second cert
Kevin & Rory were probably around the same time frame as well

My first points party was the 50K achievement in the old Office TA back in 2003. That took about 9 months and got me to the Top 15 - these days the hardcore Experts like Sid and Rory would come close to 50K a day at times

I joined in Feb 2004, and it took me (gasp!) 19 months to cross the threshold. Question volume was much lower back then, point values were a bit lower than they are now--the effects of unlimited points for Premium Services members had started to be felt, but not everyone had caught up to the new dispensation yet--and I was a lot, um, dumber than I am now. (Kind of scary, when you consider how I dumb I am today!)

When I did it, I think I was just the 4th Excel genius; Brad, Dave, and Kevin all beat me to it, and I beat Jeroen (roos01 to you newer folks) by about a month.

When I look back at my first few months on the site, at the time I felt like I was walking amongst giants. I still do feel that way, only now I fancy myself one of those giants.

Meaning no disrespect to any of the past top Experts who are no longer hanging around, I can with confidence state that I think the overall quality of the Expert cadre in our zone is at an all-time high, and that is due in no small part to people like teylyn, broomee9, Sid, dlmille, Tommy, etc., who all seem to have sprung full grown from the head of Zeus, amazing us with their talents right out of the gate.

> I joined in Feb 2004, and it took me (gasp!) 19 months to cross the threshold.
Yes, my history was slightly out, I think I transposed your name with Rory. Matty Vidas would have reached the 1M mark at a similar stage

>I think the overall quality of the Expert cadre in our zone is at an all-time hig
Concurr again. The depth of talent is much greater now. plus it is more versatile (SQL, Outlook, VB, VBscript and Access are all covered proficiently by Excel regulars)

Once upon a time, it was possible to query EE for point totals by year and month.

Thus, if I wanted to see what my point total for 2006 was, or for July 2007, that could be done.

At some point EE took that away, supposedly because the queries were causing performance problems or something.

Since then, I've made it a point to record my point totals every Dec 31, because when it comes time for re-award season for Microsoft MVP's, we get asked to make our cases for renewal, and I always make reference to the points, although I suspect Microsoft cares more about the number of questions answered, and having a professional demeanor.

Join Date: 18th Nov 2010
1000000 on 22nd Feb so that is 96 days. So I did make that list of the Ten Fastest [to 1 million]. Yippee!!!!

Here is the extract from Richard's link

Cyberkiwi reached 1,044,354 points overall on May 23, a mere 34 days after he joined Experts Exchange, breaking the old record set by Mestha on February 12, 2009, of 42 days. Following them on the list of the Ten Fastest [to 1 million] are
50 days; imitchie
64 days; chapmandew
86 days; ee_rlee
89 days; KCTS
91 days; demazter
92 days; reb73
95 days; rafrancisco
96 days; LPurvis

This reminiscing is quite interesting. Since I come from the "old" old school, I can see how EE matured over the years. When I started, there was no such thing as splitting points (although it was being discussed) and I think the highest total was 300 or something, but people were very stingy with points so most questions were 100 meaning the best you could get was 400 points for most questions.

There was lots of controversy when they discussed introducing the 500-pt question idea and it very much changed the dynamics of how you determined expert status. I had worked very hard to get in the top 10 of the overall VB rankings, then in came all these 500 pt questions and a new dozen people passed me in weeks. Obviously, the playing field has leveled now so that's not an issue any more; those at the top definitely deserve their rankings and I salute you all (especially nice guys like Sid! :))

You are probably #8 by human count.
#1=#3 and #2 = Sembee, not a rookie by any measure.

I got to a bad start on EE years ago and some people accused me of stealing answers (not limited to any zone). There were 2 mods on my back who wouldn't let go so I left. I did get along with some people and shared some interesting questions with Patrick on various platforms.

This time around started softer, but one mod keeps bugging me and even after repeated requests, will not remove a member comment from my view. That is still annoying me.

At the mo, enjoying some of Tommy's endeavours elsewhere.
You reading that thread where I'm trying to convince those guys that they can't use statistical analysis and data mining to predict winning lottery numbers? That one's been fun so far.